


What Goes Around Comes Around

by T Verano (t_verano)



Category: The Sentinel (TV)
Genre: Angst, Community: sentinel_thurs, Episode related TSbyBS, Gen, Sentinel Thursday, TSbyBS coda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-01
Updated: 2011-06-01
Packaged: 2020-03-09 20:10:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18924184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/t_verano/pseuds/T%20Verano
Summary: Five hours after the final bullpen scene in TSbyBS.





	What Goes Around Comes Around

**Author's Note:**

> written for Sentinel Thursday challenge 387 - Time Stamp

Blair's sitting in the living room watching Jim try to pretend everything's okay. They've been back at the loft for a couple of hours now and Jim doesn't show any sign of giving it a rest, so Blair's pretty much given up hope that today is ever going to stop sucking in a surreal and really — really — hard to take way.

This is what's happened so far:  
   
— Jim's settled himself on the couch with his leg propped up, and stayed there, without Blair having to say, "You have a bullet hole in your leg, Jim, remember? Why don't you just fucking take it _easy_ for a while, okay?" even once.

— Jim's eaten the sandwich Blair made him — a BLT with Fakin' Bacon and tofu mayo and the dandelion greens that were the only thing in the refrigerator vaguely resembling lettuce — without complaining. Even once.

— Jim's _talking_.

— Jim's talking a _lot_.  
   
— Jim's talking a lot about _nothing_. Okay, not nothing, not entirely— how good Simon and Megan are doing isn't 'nothing' — but twenty minutes speculating about whether Naomi's enjoying her Air India flight to Jaipur? Half an hour discussing Jim's oil change schedule for Sweetheart and which shop Jim should take her to for her next alignment? _Nothing._

Which means, it has to mean, that Jim _knows_. He's just pretending he doesn't, pretending everything's okay.  
   
Blair goes into the kitchen to get Jim more coffee. After he refills Jim's cup he turns back towards the living room, and Jim picks that moment to finally stop pretending. 

"You're not going to do it, are you," Jim says. It isn't a question.

Blair's forward momentum bails on him and he stops next to the kitchen island. He gives himself a moment to wish, again, that he hadn't fucked everything up so totally. "How can I, Jim?" he says, and that really isn't a question either.

"We could make it work." Jim sounds like he almost believes that.

He sounds like he wants to believe it, anyway. And Blair knows all about _that_ now, knows about wanting something so much you get too caught up in it to think straight; you just go blindly along like an idiot, hoping for the best and never even thinking about the practicalities, about preparing for -- or fucking _preventing_ \-- the worst.   
   
The coffee in the cup Blair's carrying sloshes close to the rim and Blair puts it down on top of the island. His hands find the edge of the counter and grip it until his fingers hurt. He says, "How?" and this time it _is_ a question, it's a whole bunch of questions rolled up into one, because he can't go there again, he can't go back to living in a fog of good intentions and "It'll all work out somehow"; he can't do that again.

"How?" he repeats. He isn't surprised when Jim closes his eyes instead of answering.

Jim _knows_. Jim just doesn't want to admit that he knows.


End file.
